Didn't Expect That
by StarSword-C
Summary: Written for Unofficial Literary Challenge 31: "There Are 31!" Awoken from a sound sleep by Section 31 Agent Franklin Drake, Captain Kanril Eleya of the Federation Starship Bajor is informed that a mysterious "Albino" wants her dead. Despite her disgust for Section 31, Eleya investigates the reports and begins laying a trap.
1. Chapter 1

**Didn't Expect That...**

 _I know what you must be thinking  
But you're not right  
You should know I'm not your baby  
Not tonight  
(I never was) The kinda girl to trip and fall in love  
(I never was) The kind to say enough is not enough  
(I never was) The touchy feely co-dependant kind  
I like the feeling but I'm not on cloud nine_

 _You love it, you hate it_  
 _You think it, you say it_  
 _You want it, you need it_  
 _I tell ya but you don't believe it_

 _What were you expecting?_  
 _Another lullaby?_  
 _Are you kidding?_  
 _You must be high_  
 _You must be high_  
 _'Cause it was just one kiss_  
 _(Hey, hey, hey)_  
 _(Hey, hey, hey)_

 _I don't need your flowers, they'll just go to waste_  
 _I don't want your candy 'cause I don't like the taste_  
 _(There never was) A possibility I'd stick around_  
 _(It never was) My intention just to let you down_  
 _(I never was) The kind of girl that's good at playin' house_

 _Ya want it, ya need it_  
 _I tell ya but you don't believe it_

 _What were you expecting?_  
 _Another lullaby?_  
 _Are you kidding?_  
 _You must be high, you must be high_  
 _'Cause it was just one kiss_  
 _(Hey, hey, hey)_  
 _(Hey, hey, hey)_

 _Everything about you makes me scream_  
 _Be a man and get up off your knees_  
 _Tryin' to say this in the nicest way_

 _What were you expecting?_  
 _Another lullaby?_  
 _Are you kidding?_  
 _You must be high_

 _What were you expecting?_  
 _Another lullaby?_  
 _Are you kidding?_  
 _You must be high_  
 _You must be high_  
 _'Cause it was just one kiss_  
 _(Hey, hey, hey)_  
 _(Hey, hey, hey)_  
 _(Hey, hey, hey)_  
 _(Hey, hey, hey)  
_ — "What Were You Expecting?" by Halestorm

You ever wake up in a dark room and have somebody just sitting there?

Well, I just did.

My right arm snaps out for the gunbelt hanging off my nightstand and a split second later I have my Type-2 aimed at the black-clad blond man in my easy chair. I'm not as good shooting right-handed but at this range it doesn't matter.

The empty click from the trigger, though, that probably matters.

Agent Franklin Drake holds up a small square of glowing plastic. "Works better with the power pack." I swear and throw the useless pistol in his general direction. "We have a situation, Captain Kanril. Somebody wants to kill you."

"Tell me something I don't know," I snap at him, then look over at Gaarra and try to nudge him awake.

Then I notice the needle-mark on his neck and round on Drake. If I didn't know better I'd swear I just saw him flinch. "Don't worry, it's just a mild sedative; he'll be fine in thirty minutes, probably less given his body weight."

"You son of a—"

"That's not your primary concern, Captain—"

"The _phekk_ it isn't, he's my _husband!_ "

Drake's face has settled back into that smarmy smile of his. "From where I sit, you're by far the more important of the two: people talk about the great Captain Kanril Eleya, the Medal of Honor winner—"

" _Earner,_ " I correct him.

"—who plotted the downfall of the Iconian Empire, they don't talk about the guy who ran your shields and nav deflector. Now, that's probably unjust, but you're the one the Albino wants, not Commander Reshek. And would you mind covering up, please?"

I pull the sheet up over my bare breasts, glaring at him. "All right, I'm a little confused here."

"You're wondering who the Albino is and why you should care that he wants you dead?"

"No, it's… _What the_ phekk _are you doing on my ship?!_ We're at warp—how did you _get_ here?!"

"I hitched."

"I don't remember pulling over!"

"Look, as I said, that's not important," he insists. Now that oily smirk of his is transitioning to an irritated scowl matching mine. He tosses a data solid onto my bedsheet. "Last date and coordinates are yours. Don't get up, I'll show myself out."

* * *

I'm still fuming as Tess, Biri, Dul'krah, Kinlo and I go over the data encoded on the fingertip-sized chunk of lithium polycrystal. I _hate_ Section 31. I hate a lot of things, but a gang of unaccountable ultranationalist black-ops guys? Call me old-fashioned but when did Starfleet start taking direction from the Obsidian Order?

A furious curse from Tess jerks me back to the present. "This—I _know_ Commander Taala'vran, I sent flowers to her widow for frak's sake!" I touch her on the shoulder but she shakes my hand off. There's a set to her jaw I've only seen a couple times. "I thought that was a reactor fault! He can't make up stories about _real people!_ "

"I don't think it's a story," the chief of the boat says, clicking a tag appended to the report. "Looks like the Corps of Engineers had some suspicions about the 'accident', thought USS _Viriatus_ should've had time to at least get off a distress signal, but they couldn't prove anything."

"And look here, ma'am," Dul'krah grunts. "Anatol Panar, that's the Cardassian ambassador to the Republic who was assassinated last month. The True Way claimed responsibility but we all know it did not fit their style."

The ambassador to the Republic… "Biri, there's a list of coordinates on that, isn't there? I didn't get a good look; plot them for me, would you?"

The map is exactly what I thought: the twelve sets of polar coordinates all fit in a loose blob about 1700 light-years in diameter, the former territory of the Romulan Star Empire. There's the dead wastes around Hobus, the big, green Raptor of the Republic, the smaller, darker patch of the Empire emblazoned with the eagle and dual globes, and the red cross-hatching of the Tal'Shiar junta's baker's dozen remaining systems.

And there's the clincher: seventh item on the list, the death of Imperial Fleet General Ael i'Baratan t'Nerul from a sudden cardiac arrest, derailing their planned invasion of the Keuhn system, the junta's only major shipyard. Circumstantially it's obviously an assassination, and…

Then I come back to the last coordinates, which has _my_ name tagged to it. It's on our scheduled patrol route, three days from now when we pass close to a Bok globule.

I straighten and grab my PADD and a stylus off the desk, quickly scribbling a note which I pass to Dul'krah. "Send that and our data in an encrypted squirt. It's addressed to a friend of mine in Starfleet Intelligence."

"Yes, ma'am." He turns and trots out.

"Now, any ideas how the _phekk_ Drake got here? Do we have a security breach I don't know about?"

"I have an idea about that, El." Biri brings a page of text up on the screen. "You know what this is?"

"I'm going to take a stab in the dark," I drawl, "and say, 'maths'."

The Trill rolls her brown eyes at me and points to a few of the equations. I'm still clueless but she's already talking like I can read it. "It's something Admiral Montgomery Scott was working on before he died. I might be able to use it."

"Keep at it." My combadge chirps. "Kanril, go."

" _Captain, Conn._ " Park's officer of the watch at the moment. " _Lieutenant Connor is waiting in your ready room. I told her you were busy; she doesn't seem to care._ "

And there's the other shoe dropping. "Tell her I'll be there in five minutes and to try not to wear a hole in the floor."

* * *

Rachel Connor is a grey-faced shaking wreck as she paces back and forth. Literally; her skin's a pale grey color rather than its usual brownish tan.

"Sit down," I tell her, firmly but not unkindly, as soon as I enter my ready room. She obeys. "Where's your unit?"

"I told 'em to change plans and hit the holodeck for a workout and a training sim, hostage rescue versus the Circle. It was supposed to be a four-on-one sparring match, me versus the boys." Her hands clench and unclench against her uniform pants, the seams over her shoulders straining slightly.

"You heard about our visitor, I gather?"

She nods, of course; grapevine seems to be the only thing on my ship faster than the warp drive. "He got in here undetected, to _your room_ , and got out just as easily. He could've taken me, off of a ship in the middle of interstellar space, and _nobody would have known!_ Where the hell am I safe?"

I'm going to have to handle this carefully. Probably shouldn't have blown off Intro Psych at the Academy in favor of Religious Studies… "I've doubled security scans as a precaution and we're keeping the shields up at random modulation, plus I've notified Starfleet Intelligence. And if Drake _had_ taken you, there'd be a nationwide manhunt for him right now or I'd be turning in my combadge."

"It's not that, ma'am. I trust you, I know that you mean the best for all of us, I know that if _anyone_ on this ship got kidnapped, the bastard who took them just earned himself a one-way trip to the special Hell. The problem's that they _won't stop_. They took my humanity, hounded me across a hundred systems, ambushed me on _Earth_ , and now I can't even get a night's rest on a starship in interstellar space? What more do those fuckers _want_ from me?!"

I start to say "don't worry", but it sounds hollow even in my head. Instead I clear my throat. "Look, Connor, I can't guarantee what's going to happen in the next week. We're working on a plan but it may not work. But look at it this way: if he thought he could get to you, he would've already _tried_."

"I… Huh." She nods slowly, thinking it through. "I suppose… maybe he thought that beaming into a room full of four MACOs and a m—an augment with superhuman senses was a bad idea." She cracks a weak smile. "Sorry, ma'am, I didn't think."

"Hey, I understand, I was spooked enough when he showed up in my chair. And besides—maybe he's on our side, just this once." She raises an eyebrow at that and I grimace. "Yeah, didn't think so either. Are you going to be good?"

"I'm… I think so, ma'am." She shudders a bit. "I'm sorry for wasting your time."

I shake my head and wave a hand at the door. "Open-door policy, forget it. Oh, and Lieutenant? Fix your skin before you head out, it's still grey."

* * *

The Bok globule designated NGC-76113 is a cloud of dark gas just off our course along the Republic border, a black patch a little under a light-year across set against the bright blue blur of the Azure Nebula visible through the warp field. I reach for the intercom. "All hands, all hands, this is the Captain. Sound yellow alert, secure ship for combat." The indicator lights correspondingly flick from blue to yellow as a tone plays on the speakers. "Stay frosty, people."

Thirty tense minutes pass. At thirty-one I call down to the galley to have them send up some coffee and sandwiches. I'm munching on a BLT when Lieutenant Esplin calls out, "Captain, I'm picking up a distress signal!"

"Details!"

"She claims to be the SS _Gann vesh Wek_ , a Tellarite-flagged private mining ship. They say they've had a computer failure seine-fishing for trace elements in the cloud and can't get their warp drive back up."

"Conn, change course. All hands to battle stations."

"You sure, El?" Biri asks. "It's a plausible story, I've got a record of just such a ship."

"Of _course_ it's a trap," Gaarra growls dismissively. "The timing's too close to be a coincidence."

"So what do we do, ma'am?" Park asks.

Tess smiles nastily. "Spring the trap."

 **END OF PART ONE**


	2. Chapter 2

**Didn't Expect That, Part II**

Planetside, even on a clear day you can see the air itself blurring and blueing distant mountains. Being inside a nebula is kind of like that. The particle density is high enough to affect light, but up close it doesn't look like fog like you see in Jachin Province or Hollywood.

A Bok globule is denser than most. It's a star nursery, an embryonic solar system that might birth a new civilization billions of years after we're all long dead and forgotten. But more to the point, the particles are bigger, big enough to cause serious damage to a ship moving faster than light, and the navigational deflector is working full-time.

"There's an awful lot of interference in here," Master Chief Wiggin adds to my thoughts from the sensor console. "Hang on."

"Yes?"

"I've got a definite metallic signature at the coordinates of the distress signal. Make it eleven degrees off the starboard bow, thirty-eight AUs ahead."

"Continue to scan the area. Park, adjust course, bring us out a hundred klicks off him. Esplin, is the interference affecting comms?"

"Not at the moment, ma'am," the magenta Saurian says. "Hailing channel?"

"You read my mind." I wait for her signal, then issue the hail. "SS _Gann vesh Wek_ , this is Captain Kanril Eleya of the Federation Starship _Bajor_ responding to your distress signal. Do you copy, over?"

I wait for a tense moment, then a gravelly male voice, tinny with interference, responds. " _USS_ Bajor _, this is Captain Thraka gasch Kull. Good to hear from you, Captain. What's your ETA, over?_ "

"We're there now, over." Park smoothly brings us out of warp right on target, the other ship an almost invisible pinprick that Wiggin drops a reticle on and magnifies. I eye the design. "Well, no wonder they're having computer problems, it's a Yoyodyne product." Gaarra gives a bark of laughter and Tess chuckles. "Esplin, you got a voice analysis for that Tellarite?"

"A voice analysis? Uh, fairly high levels of stress and relief, but under the circumstances—"

"I _mean_ is he the real thing, Lieutenant?"

"I have no way of knowing that, ma'am: we haven't got any recordings of Captain Kull."

"Guys, life signs?"

Gaarra answers, "I've confirmed thirteen humanoid life-forms. She's got a listed crew of eight, but that ship hasn't been through a regulated checkpoint since before the war."

"These tramp freighters are a nightmare, ma'am," Wiggin grumbles.

" _Phekk._ All right, bring us closer. Ahead one-half impulse."

We close the distance rapidly and the blocky ship quickly grows bigger on the screen. I squeeze my armrests hard, glaring out at the blackness.

Then Wiggin leans forward suddenly and I'm snapping the order before he can even say anything: "Take evasive action! Give me cams!"

Park slams the rudder hard to starboard and guns it as the holocamera on our starboard side catches a ripple in space, resolving into a dark shape, thin downswept wings with petals spreading from the dorsal side.

"Uzaveh's balls," Tess breathes, "that's a—"

It is.

A shockwave of green light ripples by, missing the stern by barely a hundred thirty meters. The _Scimitar_ -class dreadnought screams out of the void, its broadside mounts raining green hellfire on our aft shields. The main systems display blows out behind me and I feel the snick of a shard of glassteel on my cheek as a crewman howls in pain.

"Shields at 87 percent! Weapons locked, returning fire!" Lances of orange snap out from the aft phasers and Tess sends a salvo of torpedoes in his direction as the warbird comes about.

" _I'm sorry, Captain!_ " Captain Kull radios. " _They've got my wife and daughter in the hold!_ "

"Turn that off!" I snap, furious at both of us. "Medical team to the bridge! Park, full impulse, get some distance on him!"

 _Phekk_ me. They have a _Scimitar_ -class. How the _phekk_ can they have a _Scimitar_ -class? "Get an ID on that ship!"

A barrage of plasma torpedoes courses in. One misses, Tess downs three with the phasers, but the other half bang one, two, three, four into our shields and the bridge shakes. "Aft shields at sixty percent!" she bellows over the howl of a hull-breach alarm from one of the consoles. "Casualties in Astrometrics!"

"I got her, El!" Gaarra yells. "ChR 21206, IRW _Firestorm_. That ship was reported destroyed in '84!"

"Obviously not! Esplin, send a distress signal, and send a broadcast on all frequencies!"

"Ready, ma'am!"

"Headlock! Repeat, headlock!" The bridge shudders again. "Park, you got room to flip us?"

"I do… _now!_ " He yanks back on his sticks and _Bajor_ rears up. Another volley of torpedoes streaks past beneath us and more disruptor fire ripples against the fresher dorsal shields.

"All dorsal batteries, fire!" Tess gets off three blasts from the five dorsal strips as we pass through "vertical" but the dreadnought barely seems to notice. Then we're through the flip, the upside-down _Firestorm_ 's running lights barely visible at this range. Tess hits him again, again. "Use the heavy stuff!"

"Loading neutronic torpedoes! Firing!" Five purple bolts join the orange streams heading out, criss-cross and mix with the green hailstorm coming in.

"Gaarra, all power to forward shield, switch life-support power to phasers!"

"On it!"

Dammit, gotta even the odds somehow. "Kinlo, can you—"

"Forget it, Captain," the Klingon yells over another barrage, "I already tried it! Broke the firewall but all the control systems are isolated!"

"Forward shields at fifty-three percent!"

What feels like a secondary explosion jolts the bridge as we hurtle past close enough to make out viewports on the warbird; a few tiles fall from the ceiling. "Engineer, damage report!"

Bynam sends back, " _Ma'am, we've lost two maneuvering thrusters and the starboard nacelle is in emergency shutdown! Fire suppression systems are online but we've taken heavy casualties!_ "

"Captain, we're being hailed!"

"Onscreen!"

A deathly pale, white-haired Romulan with a mouth that looks like it's been punched a few too many times takes up the inset on the screen. "This is _Riov_ Agathon tr'Hathe. You're good but you can't win this, _Riov_ Kanril. Stand down and I promise your death will be quick and painless."

" _Imirrhlhhs'ehu!_ "

"Well, that was rude. You'll wish you had—" Esplin breaks the connection before I can tell her to.

The ship shudders as we come about and close. Disruptor fire spatters across our shields, more fire than we can possibly return.

But even in the dark, there's always hope. "Captain," Wiggin says, "we're doing more damage than it looks like. He's got all his shields shifted forward."

"I know."

"Captain," Tess asks, "what are you smiling about?"

"I have additional ships decloaking astern of the _Firestorm_!"

" _That_ , Tess!" Three blue-black crescents erupt from the nothingness, spitting a hail of phaser fire and torpedoes into the dreadnought's unprotected engine nacelles. The warbird's shields shift aft, but in that brief moment the damage is done: it can't maneuver, its engine section is in flames. Park brings us past the ship and the trio of destroyers forms up behind us. "Target the reactor and give me comms. Colonel tr'Hathe, this is Captain Kanril. I will accept your immediate and unconditional surrender."

Then the ship's singularity core detonates and the warbird vanishes into its own artificial black hole. " _Phekk_ , he self-destructed. Conn, get us clear."

Everybody's staring at me. "Ma'am, who exactly are those people?" Tess finally asks.

I grin. "My friend in Starfleet Intelligence. Esplin, cancel the distress signal and contact the lead ship on Tac Two."

"Uh, channel open."

" _Artemisia_ Actual, this is _Bajor_ Actual. Good to see you, Tia."

The screen flips to a carrot-topped commander with white shoulders and a black divisional stripe. " _Nice to see you again, too, Eleya. Wish it was under better circumstances._ "

"Commander—"

"Tess, I tutored her at the Academy, it's okay."

"Yes, ma'am."

"I heard about Sobaru, Tia. Sorry I couldn't make it to the funeral." She smiles briefly. "I'm curious, how'd you manage to convince Admiral Yagami to let you bring two more _Phantom_ s? I mean, not that I don't appreciate the backup, he probably would've…"

Tia has a weird look on her face. " _Umm… would you believe me if I said I saw it happen?_ " she asks.

I squint at her for a second. "Come again?"

" _I'm serious,_ " Tia replies. " _I had a… I'm not sure whether it's a nightmare or a vision… about three days before you contacted me, where the Albino destroyed your ship. I just couldn't let it be, and when you sent me that info… I knew I had to act._ "

"Uh. All right." Probably bad luck or something to question a gift from the Prophets.

" _Only thing I wondered was how you planned to use 'headlock' in a sentence, but I guess you weren't._ " I snort at that. " _Are things under control here?_ "

"For the most part, but fan out and make sure the Albino didn't leave any surprises behind. Park, take us back to the _Wek_." I hit the intercom again. "Connor, get your team to the transporter room. You've got a hostage rescue to deal with, then we can all go home." I switch the call to Engineering. "Bynam, how long before you can have the warp drive back up?"

" _Give me thirty minutes, I can get you warp 7, but I wouldn't go higher than that without a pit stop._ "

"All right, I'll ask Tia for a tow. Out." I feel a tap at my shoulder. "What's up, Master Chief?"

Kinlo hands me a PADD. "Ma'am, I got this off the _Firestorm_ before she blew."

I take the PADD. "I thought you said—"

"I said the _controls_ were hardware-isolated. This is from the memory core. Dossiers on known Federation spies and some of the pointy-ears' double agents."

"Quite a coup." I quickly skim over the data. "Wait, that's—"

"Yeah, it is."

I slowly grin as the missing piece of the plan falls into place. " _majQa', qInlo._ "

* * *

 _Thirty-six hours later._

I jerk awake again. "Good evening, Captain Kanril," Franklin Drake says.

"You're in my chair again."

"And I see you're wearing more clothes this time."

"I happen to _like_ having nothing but my man with me in bed, not that it's any of your business, _ye'phekk maktal kosst amojan_."

"Is the profanity really necessary?"

"You used me."

"I hardly think so," he retorts. "If anything, _you_ used _my_ information. The Albino wanted you dead. We wanted _him_ dead, I'm sure you wanted to _live_ …" He gestures at me.

"Really?" I push the covers off and stand, grabbing a bathrobe from the hook on my door.

"Yes, really. And you got to rescue the hostages, using _my_ extremely expensive prototype, no less. Everyone goes home happy. Well, except the Albino of course."

I chuckle grimly at that. "You know, Drake, funny thing about those Tal'Shiar assassinations, Colonel tr'Hathe's targets."

"Yes?"

"Most of them, like General t'Nerul, the benefit's pretty obvious: the current praetor hates the Tal'Shiar. Hell, he even allied with the Republic to go on the offensive against them. But exactly what do they gain by killing the Cardassian ambassador?" I watch his face for any sign of dawning comprehension but don't see any. "Ambassador Panar's work didn't have anything to do with the Tal'Shiar: the postwar constitution bans the Cardies from using military force outside their own borders unless threatened. But you know who did benefit?"

"Enlighten me."

"Yoyodyne Division." There, _that_ time he twitched. "The Cardies weren't parties to the Khitomer Summit. Ambassador Panar was trying to open a hole in a tax barrier so the Belorejal Group could bid on an upgrade project for the Temer Shipyard. But he dies, the deal crumbles, and the Senate hires Yoyodyne."

He chuckles. "So you followed the money."

"Actually my chief of security, Lieutenant Korekh, followed it. He used to be a constable, you know."

"Impressive. It benefits the Federation _and_ the Romulans," he points out. "Belorejal's never done a job that big."

"And Yoyodyne _phekk_ s up every job that big," I retort. "I'm not sure that's an improvement."

"And it's an economic boost to the Federation—"

"At the cost of an _allied ambassador's life!_ But I'm reasonably sure that wasn't the point."

"Enlighten me again."

"You boys in Section 31 get funding from Yoyodyne. You're stacked fifty deep with front companies—in direct violation of federal securities regulations, I might add—but Dul'krah and Master Chief Kinlo cracked them. Several of the principals are on SI's list of suspected Section 31 associates and they include a board member's niece. And I believe that wasn't the first time Ambassador Panar had gotten in their way: there was that amusement park renovation in New Lakarian City. So you leaked his itinerary to the Tal'Shiar and planted evidence linking him to Senator tr'Vreenak's assassination by the Dominion; Romulan love of payback did the rest."

He purses his lips and nods. "Clearly I underestimated you."

"Don't let the pretty face fool you." I smile in a way I know accentuates the scar on my cheek, especially in the dark. "You won't get away with this."

Drake stands, giving me another oily smirk. " _Please._ I 'get away' with operations like this all the time." My door hisses open and Drake throws me one last snide comment as he turns. "It's been a pleasure working with you, C—"

"Hi, Frankie." A royally pissed-off crew-cut brunette socks Drake in the chest, and he goes flying backwards a good two meters with the _crack_ of a busted rib. "I'll 'prototype' you, motherfucker… Move in, boys!"

Drake only manages a weak groan as Connor lifts him off the ground by his leather shirt one-handed and turns so that Lieutenant Korekh can cuff him. "Bet that felt good," I comment, grinning.

She's smiling from ear to ear. "You have no _idea_ , ma'am." Drake makes another cross between a gasp and a whimper. "I think he needs a trip to sickbay before we throw his ass in the brig?"

"Sure, just let me get the list of charges. Dul'krah?"

Korekh tosses me a PADD. I tap it on and scroll through the list. "Connor, show him over here and make sure he's conscious."

"Yes, ma'am."

"You… you can't do this," wheezes Drake. "You can't just have my weapon manhandle a Federation citizen like this—OW!" he snaps at Dul'krah yanking a set of zip-cuffs taut over his wrists.

"'Your weapon', _my crew_. And it feels kind of funny to rub it in your face that the sixteen million credits—"

"Seven _billion_ , it was just the successful experiment—" Connor slaps him, probably not hard enough to bust his jaw.

"—you spent on turning a Federation officer into a weapon are right here in front of you and you're _never_ going to take advantage of _her_ ever again." I flip screens on the PADD until I find what I need. "Right. Rutherford Lynn Weiner—"

He gapes. "How did you—"

"—alias 'Franklin Drake', under the authority of the Federation Starfleet I'm hereby placing you under arrest pending transport to federal district court. You are charged with illegal genetic experimentation, misuse of government resources, sending a false distress signal, criminal negligence leading to combat loss of Starfleet assets, espionage, conspiracy to commit murder… Oh, and two counts of trespassing."

"'Trespassing'?" Connor reluctantly passes the confused Weiner over to Dul'krah, who holds him just a bit more firmly than absolutely necessary.

"Well, you're _here_ , aren't you?" Petty Officer Kallio stifles a laugh.

"Rrrrr, very _funny_. You _know_ this will never get as far as a trial."

"You know, you're probably right about that," I agree in a thoughtful tone. "I hear Admiral zh'Zoarhi wants your wedding tackle on a platter for that listening post in First City whose cover you blew. If I were you, I'd turn state's evidence."

As I finish my remarks Weiner jerks his zip-cuffed hands free of the big alien and smacks something on his belt with a wince as his rib stresses.

Dul'krah takes hold of Weiner's arm again, squeezing hard enough that the human hisses in pain. "If you wish to injure yourself further, I suggest you try slamming your head against the brig walls."

"Wh—"

"Having performance issues?" I say conversationally. "You know, I hear it affects one in five males." Now Kallio is openly sniggering and the other MACOs are hiding grins. Even Dul'krah's mouth is twitching. "That transwarp beaming trick of yours," I continue, " _really_ convenient way to get one, maybe two humanoids in and out of tight areas, but it's got a few issues. Cargo capacity sucks, it's really bad for the service life of the Heisenberg compensators and, uh, it takes even less effort than a normal transporter to render it completely useless, just a little tiny exotic particle burst." I smile sweetly at him. "If you're curious I'm sure Commander Riyannis can explain it in more detail than I can. Korekh, strip-search him in case he has any more little surprises, and make sure there's at least four armed guards you know personally watching his cell at all times."

"Six, ma'am. I am aware of how to handle a flight-risk."

"Move out, then."

"You'll never get away with—"

"Oh, gag him, too, would you? Some of us need our beauty sleep."

"Can I come in now, honey?" Gaarra asks from the corridor.


End file.
